


A Silent World

by MinaAffairs



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Loneliness, Post Apocalyptic Etheria
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinaAffairs/pseuds/MinaAffairs
Summary: Etheria is dead.Hordak has spent decades upon it, living in isolation. He won. The world is his and it is nothing he ever wanted.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 45





	1. Rainy Day

The rain is heavy. It's always heavy. It comes down in sheets and the sound of it echos across and through the Fright Zone. It is the only sound present here, on this metal balcony overlooking the broken city state. The place is destroyed. Broken and split. For the most part it is nonfunctional. Only the downed starship that serves as the central tower of the Fright Zone remains lit and operational. It's the only part that's been given upkeep.

There's no point for the rest.

Hordak's talons rest on the railing. His eyes stare out unblinking across the world. The massive chasms, the broken landscape. He's carved it all into his mind. He can remember it perfectly at all times and yet he feels a need to stand here. Though he can feel Imp shivering at his side. They'll need to go inside soon.

This was supposed to be his conquest. Etheria was to be the world he claimed. The world he brought into the fold with nothing. It was to be Hordak's absolute greatest triumph. Yet here it stands, broken and lifeless.

He had not conquered, he had decimated, and in the end only he, Imp, and his robots remain.

No Horde. No rebellion. No Force Captain. No Princesses. No She-Ra. No Entrapta.

Just him and his creations. 

Hordak turns to head back into his home. Never did he think ultimate victory would be so empty.

Within the tower the pouring rain is still perfectly audible. The pounding of water against the hull plating of the once ship echoing loudly. It's almost soothing really. There is something about such a simple sound that is reassuring, it makes it clear that time is continuing to move forward. He is not simply stuck in an unending purgatory, he is somewhere. He remains real.

Wordlessly Hordak walks through the Fright Zone. Down empty halls, through a throne room that is so rarely used, into his sanctum. It would be easy to do nothing, to sit upon his throne and Lord over a dead world. That would likely drive him insane very quickly however, so instead Hordak does something else.

He tinkers.

It's not a term he would have ever used to describe his scientific and engineering work before, but really that is what it is. He builds machines, he tests small theories, he tinkers. 

All sorts of things litter this place, his own projects and those things he has scavenged to poke at. An assortment of clever little trick arrows, a staff seemingly able to channel the planet's ambient magics, a broken mask made from a First Ones construct, a red metal diadem that for all Hordak's poking truly seems to do nothing at all, a sword of First Ones design. 

Curios, reminders, little projects.

Hordak moves through the sanctum slowly. Checking on computational models, on little experiments here and there. He spends a while staring at some machines he has been working on. He has hit multiple roadblocks in a number of projects. He has been trying things outside of his expertise to say the least.

He misses Entrapta.

He has time to get stuck though. There is no need to be impatient or to even get frustrated. He will tinker more, or perhaps the solutions will come to him while he works on other things. That has happened. He has so much time, broken but unaging. Sick but undying. Forever here.

Prime never came. Prime is never coming. 

Hordak finds himself frozen in place. Talons digging into his work bench. He lost track of himself for a moment. He let his hurt and anger begin to well up. That won't do, there's no point to it. The once warlord takes a deep breath. It is okay that Prime is not coming. It is probably for the best. Yes. 

He moves to examine something new. The sword. Every so often he takes the time to study it. Sometimes it produces an effect but it seems to be near random. Likely due to the damage the planet itself has sustained and the way the sword seems to be Intertwined with Etheria.

He blew up a vitrine by inducing an energy beam from it once.

It holds the key to everything, he is relatively sure of that. As Hordak unseals the containment unit he keeps it in and carefully removes it he begins to think of new tests to perform on the thing. Eventually anyway, he's not done dissecting it yet.

If he understood it he could use it as a tool.

He could repair things perhaps?

Carefully and slowly Hordak runs the scanning head across the blade. He's done this many times but he continues to refine his tools. The sword is layers upon layers of crystalline circuitry, impossibly complex. While at first he tried to brute force it into different uses he has since learned to take a much more methodical approach. He must learn it inside and out. Discern exactly what the sword is, how it was made, how it interacts with Etheria.

It is a slow process. Just scanning its many intricate layers is akin to mapping a continent. He has not even begun on the runestone. Hordak has been scanning and mapping this damn blade for so long now. He can't even remember how long.

Hordak blinks 

He can't even remember how long. How long has it been? Years? Decades? It makes him frown and he stands up straight, thinking about that now. Decades at least. Some of the magical biosphere has begun to properly adapt to the ravaged world. He saw animals the last time he travelled. Hordak begins to pace. Yes he could open a terminal, check the chronometers but... Shouldn't he remember? Shouldn't he himself be able to keep track of how long it has been since they destroyed everything? Since he survived armageddon? 

So lost in thought he fails to notice the sword of protection begin to vibrate on his workbench

What Hordak does notice is the many terminals beginning to scroll and tab through files, command lines, Control systems. The confusion is immediate. A glitch? A virus? There's no one to deploy a virus? What is this...

Finally he notices a glow emanating from the Sword. His eyes go wide at the sight of the blade and runestone alive with magic and power.

And connected to his equipment.

Hordak scrambles back over to the sword, ripping cables free and pulling it off of the table. He needs to get it back in containment. Then he needs to purge whatever it has sideloaded into his systems. Then figure out HOW it did this. A solid plan. Crisis management. He can do this. He put out that fire last month didn't he? At least he's pretty sure that was last month...

Then suddenly a green glow sparks to life in the sanctum. Hordak knows immediately what it is. He dreads what it is. Slowly he turns toward the generator, watching it pull the long repaired frame into place. He put the damn thing back together but he never made it functional. 

And he definitely never established a stable outside connection.

The portal machine explodes to life! A sphere of warped space forming within the frame. He hasn't seen this in so long but all it really stirs in him is terror. His senses return, and he knows that he needs to shut this down. Manually cut power. He moves to one of the heavy levers in the sanctum but even as he grabs it and pulls to kill the system he see the portal destabilizing. 

That's bad.

Well, it's better than the portal engulfing reality and destroying everything. It's still bad though. With the time he has left Hordak tries to dive behind cover as the blast fills the immediate area. 

In the aftermath he stands up. The frame is destroyed. Again. He won't be repairing it this time. The generator maybe, he could use that for something else. Parts of the sanctum are falling from the ceiling, knocked loose. There are scorch marks, a few terminals were shattered. Not the worst explosion this place has suffered in all honesty 

Then Hordak spots her. The blonde in the red jacket slowly standing up from roughly the epicenter of the blast zone. She looks haggard, but surprisingly uninjured by the explosion. Eye of the storm situation perhaps?

He shakes the pondering out of his head, because that's a person. That's Adora. Who is dead. He blinks. No that's wrong. She wasn't ever confirmed dead. She vanished after the portal failure...

The young woman finally notices him. "Hordak!" She hisses out, dropping into a trained fighting stance.

Hordak stammers. Then with no other ideas in his head he holds out the sword of protection. "This is yours…


	2. Alone no more

The silence that fills the sanctum is so unlike the silence Hordak has grown used to. It's heavy in the air, it carries anticipation with it, and the pause gives Hordak a moment to realize that what he just said was in fact very dumb. There is room to forgive though, after all he is dumbfounded! And this is the first person other than Imp he has seen in who even knows how long! He cannot be blamed.

Adora finally breaks the silence with her own dumbfounded. "What?"

Hordak glances at the sword he is holding, then to her, then back at the sword. "The sword. It is yours." He repeats. he wiggles it just a little. 

"You... You're giving it to me?" She asks incredulously. That makes sense. She probably has no idea what's going on.

Hordak blinks. Oh. She has no idea what's going on. This makes sense. "Yes. It is more useful in your hands." 

Adora gapes. So Hordak continues 

"Etheria is dead. Myself, Imp, and now you are the only sapient life upon it." He elaborates. Then he glances around "are you hungry? I believe I can still produce ration bars..."

"What?" Adora speaks again. "You're lying." She suddenly adds, stepping back from Hordak to add some distance. She's clearly on edge, glancing around, searching for an advantage.

Hordak for his part is momentarily confused. "No I am sure I can make ration bars." then it clicks. Focus Hordak. "Oh. I am not. I can prove it to you." He glances around himself. "I believe a number of your... Friends... Belongings are here." He admits. The word friends hurts. He hasn't had to say it, or even think it in a long time. It makes him think about what he let slip away from him, what ultimately led here. 

Adora can't help but look where Hordak looks, and it makes her freeze. Her eyes widen as she sees the arrows, the staff, the diadem. Hordak can almost see the neurons firing, trying to parse what she's seeing. Trying to find a reason, trying to justify this. 

He's done that.

"I can tell you the details." He adds. He wants to. He wants to talk to someone. 

Adora shakes her head. "No." His ears hear her whisper "you're lying" she says again 

Hordak can only frown. Then he sighs and his ears droop. He tosses the sword her way and steps to the side. He needs to work on his consoles. Besides, he has the only reliable food production.

Hypothetically 

"You can go, if you want, but it is just me." He tries to reiterate. "It would be... Best if you didn't go." He wants to ask her to stay. To her he is the great enemy, the evil she must defeat. To him though? She is a person. A person in a world without any people anymore. He wants her desperately to stay. He misses the presence of others even if he would once be loath to say such a thing.

Of course she doesn't stay.

She grabs the sword and runs. She doesn't believe him. She won't listen to him. Hordak cannot blame her really. He knows that he would do the same in her position, or perhaps he would have tried even to fight in her position. Regardless, he isn't much better. Yet it is still so deeply disappointing. 

Hordak has to sit down after she leaves. He needs to take deep breaths to steady himself. The silence again. It feels heavier though. Being reminded of the weight makes it so much worse again.

Deep steady breathes. There's no need to roar or destroy things. There is no need for a tizzy. Hordak is the only other person on Etheria after all, the Fright Zone the only place reasonably liveable. She'll be back. She has to be.

So Hordak gets himself up. It is all going to be alright, he just needs to make sure the ration bars are good and can still be manufactured.

The following days, and then weeks, are difficult. Hordak feels constant anticipation, hoping for the other person's return. He is admittedly sure she is in a cave crying somewhere or something similar. Maybe she's still in denial, thinking that there must be someone else somewhere.

There isn't, of course. 

Hordak himself searched across the world too. It was some time after the end. At first he had accepted the isolation and silence, he had revelled in it. His victory had been complete, the world was finally his. In time it got to him though. The feeling of isolation gnawing at him, being completely alone so foreign to his clone mind.

So inevitably he had set out, hoping for others. He told himself he would conquer them, make them his as he had done before all of this to so many others. Really though he just wanted another person, any other person. Any sound, any contact. Some sort of stimulation for his mind.

There had never been anyone. No matter how far he travelled, no matter where he looked. He was alone beyond his unspeaking creations. Perhaps it drove him mad for a little bit, but even that wears itself out when you simply cannot die.

It is maybe good Adora is getting the fruitless and soul crushing search for survivors out of the way early. She will be more willing to talk to him if she knows all of her friends are long dead.

Eventually though he hears the other voice again. The simple "Hordak." Coming from the entrance to his sanctum. It surprises him rather thoroughly. Hordak shut down the automated defenses in his home long ago, seeing them as just a resource drain, and apparently he also neglects to lock doors these days too 

That also didn't really matter when no one else existed.

His red eyes dart up from the robot he's working on, over to the door of the sanctum. Sure enough there stands Adora. She is a mess, her jacket torn and dirty. Her hair a disheveled mess. She looks tired. She looks broken. No doubt her journey has caused her quite a lot of distress.

"Adora." Hordak replies, trying to hold back his excitement. He can hear imp crawling around up above, watching this exchange.

They stare at each other for a long moment before Adora speaks again. "I..." Then she falls to her knees. "It's all gone" she croaks out.

Hordak only nods. "Yes. It is." 

"How? Why?!" She seems quite emotional to say the least 

But Hordak has thought about how he will answer this. A single word to start "War." He sees her shudder in response. 

Then

"Did you do this?" The question is quiet, but firm. It is accusatory 

"In part" Hordak admits. "I can tell you what happened." He adds, then finally. "Perhaps you should get a change of uniform first though?"

She doesn't reply to that, just trembling on the floor. That is basically a yes though so Hordak goes to see if he has an identical red jacket for her.

It doesn't take him long. Apparently that style got made in some bulk despite Hordak never seeing anyone but adora wear it. When he returns Adora has managed to pull herself to a seat, staring at the floor with empty eyes. That's alright she doesn't have to talk.

"The Planet is, or rather was, a massive weapon system built by your First Ones." Hordak notes as he walks past her, tossing the jacket at her and moving to pull diagrams up on the primary sanctum terminal. "It was Entrapta who discovered this, though using this weapon was another question entirely." Hordak nods. 

Adora looks up "You did though... Didn't you?" The words come out as almost a whisper.

"Me?" He looks back. "No. I never worked out how to initialize it without you being present. She-Ra is meant to be a component to the fire control system. It was the rebels who eventually accessed it." He nods.

Adora looks utterly struck dumb for a moment. "What?"

"I'm still not quite sure how it was done. From what I understand Princess Glimmer of Bright Moon with the help of Shadow Weaver devised a plan to siphon power from the weapon in order to use it against the Horde." He taps his chin with a claw. He hasn't thought about this in so long. "The entire system was very unstable however, and when finally tapped the energies of the weapon instead burst forth and shattered Etheria." He nods.

"And that's... What happened to everyone?" Adora asks quietly 

"Most everyone. Shadow Weaver was consumed by the weapons core itself before it failed, Princess Glimmer was caught in the immediate energy wave."

Adora is staring. "You were there..."

"Oh yes." He smiles back at her. It's nice to have someone to talk to. "Catra had been about to kill me when it all happened..." A chuckle of all things escapes him. "ironically it saved my life..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops here I am.


End file.
